What kind of mine is that west of your home. It looks like they are mining limestone to make cement.

Google Earth doesn't work very well for me. It has my address about a mile down the road and you can't see anything very clearly. Google Street is not available down here. The nearest Google Street view is up in San Antonio about 40 miles from here.

Not a mine mate...its a quarry. Where I am the bedrock is basically granite. They quarry it for road base and anything else that needs that kind of "fill". They also crush the granite boulders into aggregate of various sizes...from 2" right down to dust. The other quarry to the east is now closed, being prepared for development, but it specialised not only in granite boulders but also "deco" decomposed granite...great stuff for dirt motor racing tracks.

Most annoying part is the dust...on a windy day everything gets a fine layer of dust on it.

The bushland behind the eastern quarry is actually a big hill (look at the Terrain Feature), and beyond that is the Army Barracks I was last posted to. I used to enjoy running over that hill...most pleasant jogging through the bush.

In the environmental field, we use the term "mine" as more of an action verb, as in "removing of large quantities of materials." We even use the term with water. When large cities move out into the adjacent counties and drill wells to pipe into the cities, is a good example.

We don't have any surface rocks in my area, unless you count sling-shot size. The nearest bedrock is located hundreds of feet below the surface. About 40 miles north of here, they quarry surface limestone. That same layer is faulted downward to over 5,000 feet below the surface here.

Anyway, so much for rocks and geology. (I've got a degree in geology also)

You would have a ball over here with your Geology Degree...in fact Geologists don't do too badly as far as earning money goes. We have a couple of very large mining companies, one of which my son-in-law works for. He is in Mt Isa where they mine silver, lead and zinc.

He is a Shift Supervisor and works about 3000 metres underground spraying the tunnels with concrete to stabilise them. Reckons he's learning to speak "Rock"...says the rocks are "talking" to him all the time.

We also mine a helluva lot of iron ore and gold in Western Australia, uranium in Northern Territory, Bauxite in Queensland, coal everywhere and a heap of other ores.

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